Long-time friends and supporters of Maggie Hassan are early attendees at the Hassan camp at the Puritan Conference Center in Manchester. Nancy Rockwell, Hassan's pastor, waits to give Hassan a bouquet of pink roses, with Chaplain Sue Goodspeed.

Across the room, long-time friends of Hassan's family Sue Ratnoff and Lynda Beck gaze at a television, above the podium. "We're more than friends," Ratnoff says. "We know she's honest. And by the way, she'd make a terrific governor."